NSW pulls request for new sentencing guidelines for random attacks

Court Reporter

The NSW government has withdrawn its request to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal for new manslaughter sentencing guidelines as it prepares to appeal against the minimum four-year jail term given to Kieren Loveridge, who killed Thomas Kelly with a single punch.

Mr Kelly, 18, was killed with a blow to the head after a heavily intoxicated Loveridge struck him as he walked along Victoria Street in Kings Cross in July 2012.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is appealing - also to the Court of Criminal Appeal - against Loveridge's total six-year sentence for Mr Kelly's death on the grounds it was manifestly inadequate.

In response to the community outrage over Loveridge's sentence, NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith and Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb had wanted the Court of Criminal Appeal to give trial judges guidance in relation to how they sentence offenders for "unprovoked" and "random attacks" by a single person or a small group.

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But in the Court of Criminal Appeal on Thursday, the application, which was made in December last year, was withdrawn.

This month, the NSW Parliament passed laws introducing a mandatory minimum eight-year jail sentence for so-called one-punch assaults if the accused was intoxicated or on drugs at the time.

The controversial laws have rendered a guideline judgment virtually redundant.

The Court of Criminal Appeal can issue guideline judgments to reduce inconsistency in sentencing.

Since 1998 it has issued six such judgments, including for the offences of high-range drink driving and armed robbery.

In December, Justice Clifton Hoeben said the court's full bench of five judges, including Chief Justice Tom Bathurst, would hear the case and decide whether to issue a guideline judgment.

In sentencing Loveridge in the NSW Supreme Court last November, Justice Stephen Campbell took into account Loveridge's "genuine contrition and remorse", his disadvantaged background and that he was under the influence of alcohol.

His total sentence, which included three other assault charges from that night, was at least five years and two months, with a seven-year maximum term.

He was on probation at the time in relation to an assault committed a year earlier.

Mr Kelly's parents, Kathy and Ralph, called the sentence a "joke" and said they were "shocked and just beyond disbelief".